On October 22, Columbia Global Centers connected students in the 2022 cohort of Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students recipients to share their stories.

Content warning: Death, violence, war.

On an ordinary Friday, students went to an education center in Kabul, Afghanistan to practice taking a university entrance exam. But at 7:30 am, as the students were taking the exam, a bomb attack led to at least 25 people, mostly young women, losing their lives.

While the event may feel disconnected from Columbia University, it is not disconnected from the students themselves. For Ali Danish Bakhtyari, a Master‘s student at Columbia, this event is personal: he lost a member of his family that day.

For Bakhtyari, this personal experience has made him more determined to return to Afghanistan to help others within his community. The Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students enables him to do just that. 

Initially started in 2016 by Professor Bruce Usher at Columbia Business School, the initiative is now directed by Columbia Global Centers. The scholarship allows displaced students to pursue higher education at Columbia with full tuition, housing, and living assistance during the pursuit of their degree. 

On its website, Columbia Global Centers noted that this scholarship is intended to “shift the global dialogue surrounding displaced persons, from one that views them as a burden to one that recognizes them as vital contributors to global innovation and prosperity.” No other university has pioneered a program such as this, something which Columbia hopes to inspire others to do.

Being one child of nine, Bakhtyari wanted an education. He was taught to “seek knowledge from cradle to grave,“ and believes “other universities should provide the opportunity” that the Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students provides.

In addition to being an advocate for the extension of the scholarship, he also works with Columbia University Afghan Student Alliance to help people from the Afghan community to thrive here. He hopes to “grasp this opportunity” he has been given through his work of helping Afghan students get into universities, especially female Afghan students who have been suppressed from getting an education under the Taliban. By pursuing Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics with a concentration in Computational and Data-Driven Engineering Mechanics, he has greater plans to settle into a position of influence in Afghanistan. 

Master’s student Tetiana Kotelnykova is another recipient of the scholarship. Her family, who lives in Ukraine, can only use water from 7 to 9 am daily. The thoughts of the Ukrainian war are a part of her constant reality. The Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students enables Kotelnykova to pursue her degree in Human Rights. Yet, she admits sometimes it is difficult to adapt to this new culture and connect with fellow students. The Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students allows Kotelnykova the financial freedom to work on her program Mentor Ukraine, the first mentoring program for youth from temporarily occupied territories in Ukraine. Through this program, she connects Columbia students with young students in Ukraine.

Ultimately, her experience at Columbia has been an “amazing opportunity to meet new people and engage them,” as well as expand her work through connections from the Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students. 

Various students at Columbia have been impacted by war. The Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students intends to directly support those students, and for Ronak Elias, a General Studies student, she is able to obtain her degree. 

Due to ISIS, Elias and her family had to quickly leave their hometown in Iraq. As a member of the Yazidi community, she has faced opposition from ISIS that prevented her from various educational opportunities in the past. 

By working with Yazda, a Yazidi nonprofit that advocates and offers aid to survivors of genocide in Iraq, Elias was able to engage in meaningful work surrounding the Yazidi community. Through her experience at Yazda, she was able to apply to Columbia and the Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students. She “didn’t think [she] could get in,” but she saw the General Studies students’ stories and felt like she belonged. Elias wasn’t sure how she would fund her time at Columbia when she was admitted. Because of the Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students, she commented that she is one of the first to obtain a US education from her community and can now come to Columbia University free of financial worries. 

In the coming weeks, the next cohort who received the Columbia University Scholarship for Displaced Students, including these three displaced students, will be announced. The application for the 2023 cohort is not yet live, but it soon will be, offering the opportunity for yet another group of passionate displaced students to obtain a Columbia University degree.

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